Stringed musical instruments such as guitars and in particular pedal guitars have innate structural weaknesses which translate into inadvertent variations of tonal sounds which are often unnoticed by the untrained ear and are generally tolerated by skilled musicians. During playing, pedals are depressed of both the foot and knee types which loosen or tighten a particular string or strings to selectively vary the tones produced. For example, a string may be tuned to a C note in the open condition and a designated pedal, when pressed will raise the tone of that particular string to a D note. A second pedal or lever attached to the same string may lower the tone from a C as contained in the open condition, to a B note. These changes occur as a mechanical action, in effect, either tightening or loosening the string while playing. While the limitations of such mechanical changes are normally accepted, the depression of a lever or pedal imparts additional forces which act on the structural integrity of the guitar, oftentimes with adverse results. Therefore, to obtain a D note with one string, other strings may also inadvertently receive some of the stresses and may decrease or increase in pitch.
Pedal guitar and other instrument manufacturers strive to eliminate inadvertent tonal defects and structural features which contribute to the tonal variations mentioned above, and the exact causes and/or structural designs are often debated. Thus, one purpose and objective of the present invention is to provide a mechanism to counter physical distortions or changes in a stringed musical instrument such as appear in a pedal guitar while playing to insure constant, uniform tonal quality and prevent inadvertent tonal (pitch) changes.
It is also an objective of the present invention to provide a mechanism to eliminate distortions of the instrument which affect the tonal (pitch) quality by the addition of a counter-force lever connector to the tone changer axle, in the preferred embodiment, which is attached through the counter-force lever to the foot pedals and knee levers as used for sharpening and lowering the pitch of the notes played.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide a counter-force mechanism which can be attached at the head end of the strings in a second embodiment.
It is still another objective of the present invention to provide a means for compensating for tonal changes of other strings which occur during the pressing of a lever or pedal to induce tonal changes in a particular string or strings.
Various other objectives and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art as a more detailed description is set forth below.